SOME PATIENTS
Point of Rocks Hospital consisted of about a dozen tents, each
perhaps fifty feet long, pinned as usual to the ground with wooden
pegs. These contained bunks and cots on either side, for about forty
or more patients to each tent, and sometimes, when crowded, patients
had only straw or hay bags with a blanket on the bare ground, all
of which the men nurses were expected to keep in perfect order and
cleanliness.
To enter at one end of these tents and see the rows of sick and
suffering, despondent men, at once aroused an earnest desire to help
them to a little comfort and cheer.
One day, passing through a long ward, I was startled by the sight of
a little pinched face with great dark eyes, that looked as if its
owner might be about ten or twelve years old. Stepping quickly to the
cot I said, “Why, who are you, and where did you come from?”
A feeble voice replied, “I’m Willie, I was here yesterday when you
passed, but you didn’t look at me.”
“But where did you come from?”
“I belong to the 37th New Jersey Infantry, in camp a few miles off,
and I got sick and they brought me here.”
“How could you be enlisted? How old are you?”
“I’m fifteen. I lied, and swore I was eighteen, and my parents
wouldn’t let me go, so I ran away, an’--an’ I guess, I’ll never see
mother any more.”
The soldier nurse said he was a typhoid case, with a chance of
living, if he could have good care, but that he would not be
persuaded to eat. I returned to him at once, saying, “Willie, I hear
that you don’t eat anything.”
“I can’t eat.”
“O, but you must. Now, Willie, can’t you think of something you’d
like?”
“Well,” with a suppressed sob, “if I could get anything like mother
used to make, perhaps I could.”
“Now tell me, Willie, what it was, what did it look like, and how did
it taste?”
The sick boy’s description was not very clear, but I said cheerfully,
“O, I can make that,” and ran off to my tent and soon prepared
something which, with a silver cup, spoon, and a tidy serviette,
at least looked inviting in contrast with the battered tin cups
and plates of camp life. He showed some interest as I said, “Here,
Willie, is just what mother used to make.” And he took a few
spoonfuls quite cheerfully as I fed him. I asked if it did not taste
something like mother made. He thought it did.
Feeling sure that only the greatest care would save him, I went at
once to Surgeon Porter, saying, “Doctor, I’d like to have that boy,
Willie, for an orderly.”
“What, another?” he replied, laughing. “You have more orderlies now
than General Grant himself.”
“This is true, doctor,” I said, for I had four who had been assigned
to me by the doctor that they might have special care, “and not one
of them can stand alone for one hour.”
“Well, you may have him, and I wish you success.”
I then asked Willie if he would like to be my orderly, and he seemed
quite delighted. I directed the nurse to dress him early next
morning, and to let him lie down till I came for him. The poor boy
staggered to his feet, but we almost carried him to my tent, where
I removed his army shoes and put a pair of my slippers on his poor,
little thin feet. I then laid him on my cot, bathed his hot head,
neck and hands, gave him nourishment, and told him to try to sleep
while I was away caring for other patients. All this was repeated for
several days, and thus he escaped the sight of dying and suffering
men. Each night I took him back to his tent, where he slept soundly
until morning. He improved slowly.
One day, while taking my dinner alone in my little mess tent, I was
surprised to see him standing at “attention” beside me. “Miss Smith,”
he said, while the fever burned his cheeks and brightened his dark
eyes, “I’ve been here five days, and it’s time I did something for
you.” The fever had burned out for the time, and, turning quickly I
caught his falling, emaciated form. Realizing his own helplessness,
the poor child wept bitterly.
Meanwhile his youthful officers had come to see him, which greatly
pleased the poor boy. He improved very slowly, but evidently would
not quite recover in these surroundings. I decided to make an effort
to send him home as soon as possible. With permission of Surgeon
Porter, and with his ambulance and an orderly, I rode a few miles
to a camp of the 37th New Jersey Infantry, in the woods, which was
composed entirely of boys and officers of not more than twenty or
twenty-four years of age.
The little “dog” or A tents allowed only one to crawl in on either
side of the tent pole, and lie on his blankets on the bare ground
with knapsacks for pillows. No wonder malaria made havoc in their
ranks!
While I was there, an order came to send forward a small detachment
of men for picket duty. All clamored to go, shouting in a most
informal manner, quite regardless of discipline. “Say, Cap, let me
go.” “I say, Maj, you know me.” “Cap, let me go, won’t you?” etc.,
etc. A dozen men were selected, not one fully grown, and these boys
staggered off in high spirits, each carrying a knapsack weighing
sixty pounds, a gun and an overcoat.
The colonel and captain of this regiment very cheerfully made the
necessary application for a sick furlough, and on my return to camp
Surgeon Porter at once endorsed it. Then, having waited a few days
for some one to take charge of Willie, I had the satisfaction of
seeing him start in an ambulance for the boat at City Point, supplied
with brandy and nourishment. His head lay on the knee of an officer
who was going to Fortress Monroe, and there was a happy boyish smile
on his face as they drove away.
In a few weeks came the good news that he had reached home and mother
and was fast recovering.
In the same ward with Willie were a number of Ohio “ninety days
selected men,” chiefly farmers, nearly every man six feet or more in
height. They were typhoid cases, who were really suffering more from
nostalgia than from fever. They had already served half their term,
yet nothing could arouse them from despair and homesickness, from
which many of them actually died, while the wiry, irrepressible city
boys generally recovered.
One day, while I was trying to bathe away the fever from the head and
hands of a young officer, General Butler entered the tent with some
of his staff, and thanked me for my care of this favorite, asking
that I would do all in my power to make him comfortable.
Another patient, Chaplain Eaton, of a Connecticut regiment, was
recovering from typhoid, and, though not very ill at this time, still
claimed a good deal of my attention. I felt, however, that it was a
waste of time to spend many minutes talking with him, or in reading
the Bible to him, while so many others were really suffering and
needing special care. But I wrote to his wife and did what I could.
He was very grateful, and wished to prove it by presenting to me a
handsome black horse, that his orderly brought daily to the tent for
inspection and petting. The animal was so intelligent that he seemed
really to recognize me. The chaplain’s insistence upon my accepting
the horse was quite annoying; and at last I said to him that “it
would be a great pity to turn such a beautiful creature into an
‘elephant’, which he would certainly become on my hands.”